It was the twilight of the iguana.From the rainbow-arch of the battlements,his long tongue like a lancesank down in the green leaves,and a swarm of ants, monks with feet chanting,crawled off into the jungle,the guanaco, thin as oxygenin the wide peaks of cloud,went along, wearing his shoes of gold,while the llama opened his honest eyeson the breakable neatnessof a world full of dew.The monkeys braided a sexualthread that went on and onalong the shores of dawn,demolishing walls of pollenand startling the butterflies of Muzointo flying violets.It was the night of the alligators,the pure night, crawlingwith snouts emrging from ooze,and out the sleepy marshesthe confused noise of scaly platesreturned to the ground where they began.The jaguar brushed the leaveswith a luminous absence,the puma runs through the brancheslike a forest fire,while the jungle's drunken eyesburn from inside him.The badgers scratch the river'sfeet, scenting the nestwhost throbbing delicacythey attack with red teeth.

And deep in the huge watersthe enormous anaconda lieslike the circle around the earth,covered with ceremonies of mud,devouring, religious.